Why a forum instead of a blog?

[Kurt]

Why a forum instead of a blog? I get asked this a lot.

First, let me say it isn't either/or. It's like asking me if I want tacos or pizza. Both please. I have a couple of WP blogs. I even have a few WP installs on various domains that do nothing but run WP plugins.

My honest opinion is forums are possibly the most underrated free marketing resource and MYBB software can probably be installed on your site in a couple of minutes if you have cPanel with Fantastico or Softuclous. I just like posting on forums more than blogs. I feel like it's much more casual and I don't worry about being as perfect as possible.

I've also used a forum to set up private discussions with another person or small group...ON MY OWN DOMAIN for extra privacy. It only takes a minute or two to create a private forum for friends, family, freelancers, etc.

But the things I like most about forums is community and User Generated Content. That's you folks. A blog is all about "me" while a forum is about "us". While people can post comments on blogs, it's different. They can't start their own threads/topics so they are not as connected and the topics of every potential conversation are totally up to the blog owner.

Forums are better for social...

Both WP and MYBB have RSS pheeds. This means it's easy to post your new content on a variety of social media sites.

I use www.IFTTT.com (free) to take the RSS from the Pheeds.com Phorum and add the URL to IFTTT. IFTTT then checks the RSS to see if there are any updates. If so, it posts the title and link of every new thread here (in the public forums only) on my Twitter account.

Every time time someone starts a new thread on this forum, a new tweet is made to my Twitter account. Think about this...If you post a new thread, I get a new tweet on my Twitter account. And I get a link from my Twitter account back to the forum and your thread.

This doesn't have an instant impact. But it does build over time.

My Twitter account is pretty old. I got a good part of the followers using automation. It was easier then to get followers, but it's still a good idea now. For a site like Twitter, there's some decent follow/unfollow options available. I don't use them now so I can't recommend any..but put a lot of thought into getting the best sources for followers and take it slow and steady, especially at first.

There is a security risk with this. If a spam post gets through here it will also post on Twitter. But this problem is no harder to fix. Fix the spam on your forum. There's a number of things you can do.

You aren't just limited to MYBB and Twitter. IFTTT can take your MYBB RSS and share it in a variety of ways, including other social media sites.

A forum is the absolute best way to get other people to contribute to your site. While WP can do something similar with forum plugins, this is exactly what a forum like MYBB is supposed to do, make it easy for other people to add content as possible.

And every time someone starts a new thread, it also creates a tweet.